FernFolio

Ten year-old Lucky Trimble lives with her guardian Brigitte in a cobbled-together trailer home on the edge of Hard Pan, California, population 43.  Perched in the Mojave Desert, on the site of an old gold mining town, Hard Pan is home to an odd collection of individuals who have known hard times.  The Captain, a former airline pilot, has lost his family and his career.  Short Sammy, who lives in an old water tank, only gave up drinking when his wife left him, and took his dog with her.  Mrs. Prender is grandmother to five-year old Miles, who wanders around Hard Pan asking for cookies, but really looking for affection.  Ten-year old Lincoln, who is fascinated by knots, but who parents want him to grow up to be president of the United States.  Since there are no businesses in Hard Pan, there are no jobs; everyone who lives in the town relies on government assistance and receives monthly food allocations.
Life for Lucky is both wonderful and terrible.  She loves Hard Pan, the only home she has ever known, her friends, Lincoln, and Short Sammy, and her dog, HMS Beagle.  She loves Brigitte, the French woman who came to look after her following her mother’s death.  But she is afraid that Brigitte wants to go home to Paris and her mother and sisters, and hates the feelings of sadness, uncertainty and powerlessness that this fear has created in her.  So Lucky is trying her best to prepare for any eventuality, by always carrying her survival kit and by attempting to find her higher power.
Lucky has learned a lot about the importance of her higher power by eavesdropping on the meetings held at the Found Object Wind Chime Museum and Visitor Centre, meetings held by Alcoholics’ Anonymous, Smokers’ Anonymous, Gamblers’ Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous.  After she has finished her regular job of cleaning up the museum patio of beer cans, cigarette butts and candy wrappers, Lucky puts her ear to a hole in the wall and listens to stories about how people found their higher power, that power that allowed them to take back control of their lives.  Lucky figures that, if she can just find  higher power, she will be able to find herself a real family, either by convincing Brigitte to stay in Hard Pan, or by locating a proper mother.
The Higher Power of Lucky is a the story of a girl who delights in the small joys and friendships and beauty of her broken-down town at the end of the road, yet fears that she will lose everything she loves.  So she sets out to secure her world, as best she can, and discovers that home and family are sometimes closer than you realize.  Author Susan Patron’s writing is simple, evocative and poetic.  Her weaving of Charles Darwin’s voyages and discoveries, of Twelve-Step Programs, and of Brigitte’s French endearments and syntax, of Tarantula Hawk Wasps, and of the history and traditions of knots into Lucky’s story combine to create a tale that will stay with the reader long after the last page has been read. 
The Higher Power of Lucky won the 2007 Newbury Medal.
FernFolio Editor